Travel to Lake District

Chile’s Lake District is a geological theater. More than 2,000 volcanoes line the Andean spine here, and the Lake District claims some of the most dramatic: Villarrica (2,860m), one of fewer than a dozen volcanoes on Earth with a persistently active lava lake; Osorno (2,652m), whose symmetrical cone draws comparisons to Mount Fuji; and Llaima, whose eruptions have sculpted entire national parks. Below these peaks, glaciers carved the lakes that give the region its name, filling valleys with water that shifts between emerald and sapphire depending on the light.

The true treasure lies in the forests. The Valdivian temperate rainforest is the second largest of its kind on Earth, a remnant of Gondwana with species more closely related to those in New Zealand than anywhere in the Americas. One in three species here is found nowhere else. The alerce tree can reach 50 meters and survive over 4,000 years. Higher up, araucaria forests date their lineage to the Mesozoic era. These are not forests you walk through casually.